338 quota places have been awarded in four different phases of the qualification series with the host country receiving three and three wild cards were also distributed for the total of 344.

The first six athletes in each category at the 2011 World Championships in Istanbul took the qualification for their countries followed this spring by the continental tournaments and concluded by two world qualifiers. The most balanced style was female wrestling where despite just four Olympic categories (men have 7 each) the available 72 quotas were obtained by as much as 39 countries. The men’s 133 places each in freestyle went to 41, in Greco to 42 countries.

All in all 64 countries will be able to step on mat in ExCel Center and 17 of them have wrestlers in all three styles. Europe’s representation is the most populous with 29 nations preceding Asia and the Americas with 11 each.

The participation of 64 countries is a nice surprise and fine evidence of wrestling’s major world expansion. In theory the most powerful post-Soviet states in addition to the United States, Iran, Bulgaria, Turkey could have taken the majority of the quotas in all 18 Olympic categories but on the other hand we can see another 50 countries who were able to take part quite successfully in the very hard qualification battles.

Russia’s Olympic and world champion Khasan Baroyev could secure his London ticket only at the very last tournament in Helsinki while Puerto Rico qualified for the first time into WCh final with Franklin Gómez last year in Istanbul which brought him Olympic quota place at the same time.

We can still talk about countries in London like Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia or Vietnam which show very well how fast and universal is wrestling’s expansion and how great efforts are exerted for its development in every part of the world.